‘The current administration seems increasingly confused about whom to take in and whom to kick out.’
Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

For the next 90 days, if you’re coming to the US from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria or Yemen, unless you’ve already got a visa you must be a close relative in order to enter the land of the free and the home of the brave. Grandparents don’t count. Neither do fiance(e)s. These relationships, apparently, are not “bona fide”.

By the tortuous logic of this administration, the fiance part actually makes a malignant kind of sense – anyone can fake an engagement. I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence. But these are the lyin’, cheatin’ times we live in, people. We now operate on the assumption that everyone is a crook. Grandparents, though? Why do they rank behind in-laws?

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I’m not from one of the six countries, but I did have some fearsome Muslim grandparents. My grandfather, who cut a swathe across Asia marrying whoever took his fancy and swashbuckling his way in and out of trouble, would probably have created utter mayhem if he had been let loose in America.

However, dead and disowned though he might be, he was undeniably a close relation. In-laws, however, come and go. You can divorce your spouse; you can’t shed your grandparents that easily. You share genetic makeup with them.

But that’s not really the point. We are talking about guidelines put out by the supreme court of the United States of America – guidelines that are completely subjective. Where is the legal definition of “bona fide relationship”? It’s frightening to feel that suddenly who gets to come and who doesn’t is decided by some random ruling that could change by the next time I look at the news.

I think Donald Trump and his gang of thugs are beyond the pale (despite being a rather pale bunch themselves). But let’s not forget that they have history on their side.

When my daughter was in sixth grade she came home horrified because her history lesson that day had been about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, when Chinese workers were banned after being (wrongly) blamed for high unemployment in the US. Over time, we’ve sent Jews back to the Holocaust, and refused admittance to HIV-positive people, Communists and Iranians – just to name a few.

The current administration seems increasingly confused about whom to take in and whom to kick out. Confusing times are always good for smart business people – such as, for instance, Sylvester McMonkey McBean, the Fix-It-Up chap from Dr Seuss’ The Sneetches. His machine took off and removed stars from Sneetches’ bellies so they could be in vogue or not as the times dictated. Remember the Sneetches?

When the Star-Belly children went out to play ball,

Could a Plain Belly get in the game…? Not at all.

You only could play if your belly had stars

And the Plain Belly children had none upon thars.

Perhaps the Granny Ban is good for one thing – showing us that we’ve never really figured out how to protect our borders and welcome newcomers in a logical way.

Both are necessary; both are difficult. Both require cool heads, compassionate hearts and a logical, long view. Right now, however, it’s high times for Sylvester McMonkey McBean.